NES PAL Exclusives: THE SMURFS (Nintendo Entertainment System Review)
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- Опубліковано 27 бер 2023
- PATREON ► / bigolewords
STREAMS ► Every Thursday 9pm EST here on UA-cam
THE SMURFS ► It's Smurfin' time!
The introduction video I made discussing the PAL exclusives for the NES can be found here: • NES Games That Were Ex...
The Smurfs | 1994
Similar Games: Fox's Peter Pan and the Pirates
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Intro drawing by Ashley Anderson: pressstarttobegin.net/
After years of focusing on the best games for the NES, I decided to change gears and focus on lesser known cartridges that have, for one reason or another, generally escaped the public discussion and general nostalgia. This series highlights many of the relatively unknown, obscure, and unloved titles in the Nintendo Entertainment System's library. Some of these games are at best mediocre. Many are painfully bad, some of the worst NES games around. Most are hilarious for all the wrong reasons! Occasionally, OCCASIONALLY, a handful of them are actually good, borderline hidden gems.
While you won't find any of these on the NES Classic, some of these titles have managed to make their way onto the Nintendo Switch, so if you don't have an original Nintendo console or ROMs escape you ethically or technologically, there are several ways to play them.
Want more? Me too! Until then, lots of other articles where the pictures don't move and words have to be read can be found on my website(s):
top100nesgames.com
/ awinnerisyou
/ bigolewords
nes, nintendo, retro gaming, retro games, gaming, video games,
nes games, 8-bit, old school, nintendo entertainment system, famicom, family computer, 8-bit games, nintendo games, Nintendo gamer, 8-bit gaming, 8 bit, 8-bit gamer, 8-bit music, chiptune, chiptunes, retro gamer, 80s, 90s, 80s video games, 90s video games, game collecting, game collection, retro game collecting, retro game collection, game room tour, gaming tour, NES Hidden Gems, Bad NES Games, Funny NES Games, Nintendo Hidden gems, aladdin, disney nes games, disney movies, iago, jafar, the genie, robin williams, lion king, gaston, belle, disney princess - Ігри
“Young Smurf Goro” these are the kinds of quotes I love to watch this channel for!
That’s also my street alias!
The Smurfs are officially "three apples high."
Those mosquitos are to scale, those levels just happen to take place in South Carolina.
Three apples high?! That’s huge!
@@BigOleWords They used to say that in commercials for the TV show in the 80s or 90s.
Chungo is a word that depends of the context. If you are talking about someone that is "chungo", means that it is someone that could make you in trouble, most commonly use in the south generally to talked about drug additcs. If you are talking about something that is "chungo", means that it is bit hard, but not extremely hard. If you wanted to say that it is really hard, you would say "chunguísimo" or "chungo chungo".
I had no idea. I even asked my wife and she had never heard of Chungo!
@@BigOleWords In my experience learning foreign languages themselves is a bit chungo.
The Smurfs’ creator, Peyo, is a Belgian cartoon artist. “Les Schtroumpfs” is the actual original name as this was originally penned in French, one of Belgium’s three official languages. A lot of belgian comics (or “bandes dessinées” in French, literallly “drawed strips”) are regularly misattributed to France, because really, have you seen the size of Belgium on the map? Truth is, Belgium is known for a great many things, most notably beer, chocolate, mussels, comics, the saxophone, surrealism and a ridiculous talent for political compromise. Belgium holds the world record for the longest stable run without an effective government after elections. Crazy stuff!
That’s a lot of Belgian info! If you’re referring to me calling the cartridge French, it is, I have a copy from France. Definitely wasn’t implying that The Smurfs was a French creation!
Plus they gave birth to Dr. Evil. Frickin' Belgians, eh.
You forgot Belgian waffles.
@@fireflocs of which there are more than one kind! I prefer the ones from Liège with the heavier dough and pearl sugar
@@BigOleWords nah, besides, Belgium probably had the French cartridge to begin with, it's not like they edit these for every single country out there
The Black Smurfs were in the comic. The TV show had a Purple Smurf episode based on that, but well not a real skin color.
That was probably a wise decision
That part with gargamel just getting popped right in the junk with an acorn is hilarious. Made all the better by his face of just like oh ah.
Even I didn’t catch that!
@@BigOleWords
I mean his oof face is hilarious.
This genre is called "autorunner". They always existed--See Kid Klown [snes] and Taz-mania [snes]--but have become super popular with the adoption of mobile games.
This game got a strange semi-release in Scandinavia where they imported copies of the game from other European countries and slapped stickers with the Scandinavian names over the original title.
Really?! How interesting.
Wait, did they just release the game with the localized name on the box and manual (very common in other Nintendo of Europe countries back then) or did they slap an actual sticker on the cover art?
@@Smaxx actual stickers! XD
It was a late release and I guess it was cheaper than full localized art.
I remember this game from my childhood. Never made it past the swamp.
That swamp is no joke!
The final episode of The Smurfs aired just two weeks before the premiere of The Simpsons. That's crazy to think, especially since The Simpsons have been with us for just about 35 years now (longer with the Tracey Ullman show). I've always kind of considered The Simpsons to be the starting point for 90's pop culture, and it's crazy to think that The Smurfs was on through just about the entire decade of the 80's.
That…makes me feel plenty old ;)
This probably sound stupid, but man does this remind me of Donkey Kong Country.
The series also had these "dodger" levels in the form of minecart, roller coaster and toboggan stages, and that swamp level REALLY reminds me of those swamps from DKC2. Especially with how you have to land on enemies that disappear under the water, hang on vines and how the lily pads are pseudo-3D.
To be fair, these are all super generic ideas for gameplay mechanics, but still. I guess if anything, it shows that the DKC series wasn't really all that original, even if the gameplay and aesthetics were amazing :D
Good call. Between this and Thrilla’s Surfari there are plenty of DK inspirations.
There was also a gameboy version of this game, which has an even better version of the soundtrack in my opinion.
Some of the bosses are also different and it has some differences in the level design. I actually prefer it over the NES version but that's probably due to nostalgia.
Huh, I’ll check it out!
Yeah this is another one of those games where they took a Gameboy game and quickly made it into a NES version
@@dm6905yeah but this was actually a good port
@@dm6905 except, that's not what they did. They ported the game to the NES, Alberto did a unique soundtrack for the NES version and did sprites for both versions of the game
Big Ole the black smurf has history behind him these type of smurfs first appeared in the very first smurf story they were changed to purple in the US for the Hana-Barbara Cartoon.
Much like Asterix or Tin Tin, the Smurfs have been a fairly constant thing in Western European pop culture through the comics and toys. The comics are actually quite good, containing the sort of satirical social commentary that you see in a lot of Franco-Belgian comics, it's generally quite funny and well done without becoming preachy. In one particularly notorious example the Smurfs establish a monarchy during Papa Smurf's absence, which quickly turns into a tyrannical regime and the Smurfs start organizing a resistance movement against it, and the threat of a revolution and civil war looms over the village.
The early 1990s saw a bit of a revival in the Smurfs' popularity in Europe for a few years, in spite of a lack of new cartoon episodes, as the original 1981 cartoon was repackaged with a new intro and bumpers and re-entered syndication accompanied by a burst of new merchandise. In the Netherlands it was around this time the Smurfs became a Eurodance group that, for a brief period between about 1993 and 1995, had a steady presence on the music charts with covers of well known Eurodance songs, most famously "No Limit" by 2 Unlimited. Most of these songs can be found on UA-cam today, although like many novelty songs they're sadly absent from music streaming platforms like Spotify and Amazon.
The Music in this Video is pretty Rad I wouldn't expect it to come from a Smurfs Game.
Yeah it's a real surprise!
You should listen to other tunes by the same composer. On the 8-bit systems, he worked on Asterix, Tintin, Spirou... even the Turok series on GBC.
I love this channel. Your dry delivery and demeanor is right up my alley. Never change man!
You got it slice of pizza!
The Smurfs are supposed to be "three apples tall", so that's an insane skeeter
Three apples seems way too tall!
The Smurfs were 3 apples high.
I remember hearing that somewhere...
I know, I always thought they were mushroom sized too because it makes sense since they live in mushrooms.
But nope. 🤷
You're Welcome! 😊
Maybe they’re really tiny apples and really huge mushrooms :)
The Smurfs will always be some weird 80's thing in the US, but the Smurfs pretty much never died in Europe, being a Franco-Belgian comic and all. Think Tintin and Asterix, who also had video games by the same company published around that time. They even had late 90's-mid 00's pop song albums like they were the European version of the Chipmunks for some reason.
Songs as sung by Smurfs:
WAP: LA LALALALAA
Highway to Hell: LA LA LALAA
and many others!
@@thedeadpoolwhochuckles.6852 Would be preferable to what they actually sang. They actually sang Barbie Girl. I think they changed the lyrics, but they freaking covered Barbie Girl. Wish I could find that commercial that advertised that stupid album.
I’ve not played any Tintín, but there is an Asterix review coming soonish…
@@BigOleWords I don't know of any Tintin games on the NES, but certainly on the Genesis and SNES. Makes sense that a French developer would make licensed games based on Franco-Belgian comics. They seem to at least understand the licenses well.
In The Netherlands we had Smurfen House.
Their version of 2 Unlimited's "No Limit" reached #1 here in the charts. Seriously.
ua-cam.com/video/FwmJPvjBFk4/v-deo.html&ab_channel=GittaKrcma
Just discovered your channel a couple days ago. Great pace, storytelling, and sound mixing in all your videos.👍
Hey thanks, that’s kind of you to say!
There were three versions of this game simultaniously on the market: For NES, SNES and Gameboy. The SNES one looked nice, but was kinda hard. AND: Language select screens are very ordinary for Europeans. Even Yoshi's Island had one.
Sure, but on the NES this is the only one I’ve seen :)
Dude you just have to have a nice cozy dizzy walkthrough :) Also I'd love you continue full quiet.
I’m working on it!
Doesn't really have the graphics of a 94' NES title but that is pretty cool the language selection menu
That’s for sure!
That black fly was actually the one who made the Smurfs infected and become Black Smurfs.
Ah yes, nothing like a good sidescrolling Avoid-em-Up! Edit to add: Now we need an NES chiptune band called HotButterfeet.
Damn that is an excellent band name. Definitely opening for the String Cheese Incident.
As a fan of 90s underground comic artist like Charles Burns; Daniel Clowes etc. Going to Belgium was incredible.
They treat comic's with respect just like any other form of media and maybe even more so! To be able to enter a second hand comic book shop and have be 2 floors was a delight.
However... Tintin, I get. Asterix and Obelisk I get somewhat... But The Smurfs I do not understand at all. I get why they were once popular but how their popularity continued is beyond me.
Some more trivia, this time about an American comic. The comic series Bone has been in movie development hell for decades and doesn't look to be changing anytime soon.
Black Hole is one of my favorites! I’ve been to some of those shops in Europe but not knowing the language I never bought any :(
@@BigOleWords Charles Burn's is so popular over in Flemish countries that his new comic is out over there, but hasn't even been released in English yet.
Think about that... Charles Burns released his comic in non-english countries before the UK and US. Thats how much they love comics.
(I'm going crazy waiting for it to come out)
@@novelezra No way, that's wild!
Its interesting that it has language selection,. For pal games having the most common european languages only became common by the time the gba came out
Right? None if the other PAL games offer it
i played the the Game Boy version of this game, its (besides the lack of Colour) nearly the same to the NES game. But that could be my faulty memory, its over 20 years since i last played this game.
I’ll have to see if how close they are!
The "hot butter effect." Nice...
Holy schnikeys, I forgot it was Tuesday! Never a good thing to be lumped in with chaos at the carnival.....Jim henson rolls in his grave thinking of that one. Not quite a sock, not quite a puppet, but Maaaaaaan....
One of the best episodes :)
Yeah, the Smurfs is still very popular in Europe. I remember watching it alot on KRO Kindertijd (Dutch TV program for kids) and later on KetNet (Belgian program) when I was a young kid. I still like to see bits off it occasionally, because the humor is simple but timeless.
Edit: The Black Smurfs is actually a thing from the comics. The black smurfs are actually some kind of zombie that are caused by a infectious mosquito.
I was looking at the 2 Smurfs games on Game Gear and I imagine that they are also unremarkable. Maybe one is even the same game.
But, if you want a complete collection you gotta get them.
Can any collection truly be complete? :)
@@BigOleWords It all depends. Example, I haven't bought any music in ages. Does that mean my music collection is complete?
I would like to have a complete Game Gear collection someday. I'm over half way there and the library is small enough and, for the most part, cheap enough that this is a realistic goal. I already own most of the ridiculously expensive ones like Mega Man and Fantastic Dizzy.
But, I have over 500 Xbox 360 games, so that collection is one I care less about and wish to shrink.
So, can a collection ever be complete? I'd say yes, but most people never get there. You've got a complete NES collection, which is pretty cool. Oh, sure... you could add more Japanese or PAL titles, but it's already a full library. A complete NTSC collection.
@@danbauer3669 Yeah but that NES collection could always have more! I feel ya though, it ends when we are satisfied with what we're trying to collect :)
Who would have thought NES Smurfs had the first Dark Souls boss fights? 1994? HA. I stand corrected. I was thinking it was from the late 80s with the art.
They are pretty relentlessly hard.
¡Goro Azul y Pequito es muy chungo!
One of my favorite Nes games. At least you gave it a chance.
There’s lots of games I love that others aren’t as into. Smurfs wasn’t my favorite, but it’s far from the worst!
@@BigOleWords Do you have Battle Kid? It's, uh... a real test of minerals. As a Mega Man veteran, I still like it.
The second one went a bit too far, though. It's basically for people who find Battle Kid 1 too easy. Yeah, nah, the first one is challenging enough for me.
La la la la la laaa! Knew it came out but never seen it for the NES!
Awesome didnt knew This was a nes Title first. My sister had the same Game as Gameboy Version. Same Stages but no beautifull colours 😅.
I loved the Stage with the Snow Slide but my sister had to finish until that stage for me or the end because than you could decide for a stage you want to play or she typed in the password for me
When I'm looking to play an nes game I always check out this channel for what to play lol. I don't even care if the game is shit because I love a shitty challenge. I just beat panic restaurant tonight and was pretty good!
Nice! My goal is less to recommend good games as it is to highlight what makes every game distinct or interesting in some way :)
I want this game for my collection. I love the smurfs. 🙂
Hop on eBay!
Its from Belgium. But the French part. Same as Lucky Luke and TinTin. Also Belgium. Like your videos. Greetings from Belgium :)
For sure :) I’ve never really read any of the Smurfs/Tintín/Asterix stuff but I’ve seen it enough abroad to know they are a big deal!
Canadian here, but moved to Belgium about half a lifetime ago and intend to stay here forever :) Small country, but oh so much to be proud of. Belgium rocks!
I think Asterix for NES also has language options.
I’ll find out soon!
@@BigOleWords can't wait for that review.......
that's one of my favorite NES games, it's fun to play, short, and the difficulty is pretty much non-existent.
@@chrismeulen8108 Cool! I've really only turned it on a few times (and since it doesn't work on the NTSC Top Loader that's as far as I got!)
The unfortunately black Smurfs (called Gnap Gnap after all they could say) were from a storyline that's basically a zombie apocalypse, down to being bitten passing it along, ten years before Night of the Living Dead came out. They were purple in the animated series's adaptation.
I would not have guessed that was their story!
@@BigOleWords Yeah, it's super weird. You can find the episode easily on UA-cam.
@@BigOleWords the episode that featured the infection changed the color due to it being called racism…it’s a forgettable episode but was a major storyline in the comics
"Young Smurf Goro": That's actually an interesting thing I haven't seen so far either. But was it really a mistake? I could imagine them doing this for a kind of animation smearing? After all many comics use a similar style to represent rapid movement after all. Also little fun fact for those unfamiliar with the game: This was one of the rare "cross-generation" releases late in the NES' library that featured almost identical gameplay, in this case you could play on the Gameboy, NES, or SNES (although a few levels were omitted or changed). If you think the NES version is easy (never played myself), try the Gameboy one. I got it back then and either I was just really bad or it was really hard/unforgiving.
I have not tried any other Smurf title but that would for sure make sense with it’s late release on the NES
Look at the Black Smurf comic story. Pretty messed up. They obviously changed black to purple.
Good call!
It's basically about Smurfs being turned into zombies.
The comic was super racist
Will PAL NES games run on an NTSC NES? Well, that sort of depends on what you mean. On the one hand yes, NES games do function on NTSC. But the PAL NES has some important differences. For one thing, the PAL NES runs slower at 1.66 Mhz compared to the NTSC NES running at 1.79%. This is a 17% difference. What that means is for games specifically designed for the PAL NES, when you play them on NTSC hardware you're playing them 1.7x faster than they were intended to run, essentially playing them in fast forward. Depending on the game this can be barely noticable but as the music is also generated from the CPU, it too will play in fastforward and any counters like time limits will be affected too.
The other issue with playing PAL games on NTSC hardware is the difference in resolution. Although the NES hardware generates a resolution of 256x240 pixels, only PAL analog TVs actually diplay the full resolution. NTSC TVs will always loose some resolution to overscan - typically 256x224, but on some TVs it can be as low as 256x212, or even 256x192. In games developed for PAL, the developer assume the end player will see the full resolution of the screen, thus place critical information on the top and bottom of the set resolution. This can and will be lost to overscan on NTSC.
For sure! I am both playing them on my top loader and with emulation. I think I actually prefer the faster speed in some cases!
Why do european developers love hot butter mechanics?...It sounds like I"m setting up a joke but no. Alberto Jose Gonzalez was the main composer at Bit Managers. The company who made this game. I highly recommend checking out his other work like the Turok Gameboy games. Everything he does is banging. Some of the best eurostyle 8-bit music ever.
Ok cool I’ll check em out!
I beated this game but man was it hard,now i wish you compared it with the mastersystem version because there are differences between those 2 versions.
I’ve never played the SMS version, I’ll have to give it a shot!
Pretty smurfin' good video. I really enjoy your channel. Keep up the great work!
Hey thanks, will do!
You should have said "I really smurf your channel, keep up the great smurf!"
I still have the GameBoy version, which has 2 additional stages and sounds better IMO. But regardless, every 8-bit port is pretty decent.
Btw I highly recommend The Smurfs' Nightmare on GBC. Same composer, and beautiful graphics.
Ok word!
Im still fascinated by that spelling of "smurfs". It doesnt look like a French spelling (a language I can speak, kind of read and cant write) though. It looks German smashed together with French. "Sch" is very German, "trou" is a common French sequence of letters and "mpf" is German again. What on earth language is that? Its gotta be either Swiss or Belgian. Those are the only places I know of that mix French and German like that.
Fascinating.
Definitely seems like a Belgian thing.
I see the Smrfs reruns (born 1988) , I am indifferent towards them
That’s a reasonable response!
Lol, *CHUNGO MODE* "weird music plays"
Proud of you, homie! Channel just gets better and better!
Hey thanks so much bud!
UA-cam recommended it to me a few weeks ago, and I watched every video. It was amusing that, even before I subscribed, after I watched 5 videos, the "recommended videos" were all this channel. I've only seen that happen a few times.
Your channel is so freaking good man GG
Haha thanks bud :)
Purple smurf! GANAP!!
It wasn't a Smurf in black face it was the purple Smurf! He gonna get you GANAP!!
I love how one of the titles of the game is ¡Puffi The creator of the Smurfs was definitely puffing on something. The water droplets being harmful shows that this game is definitely European, what is it with hurtful water droplets and Europeans ?
I think that’s the Australian version? No idea why.
@@BigOleWords I think that is the Italian title.
Is there an extra memory mapper or something in that cart? Because it seems really colorful for the stock hardware.
Maybe?!
It looks better on SMS and especially GG, but sounds better here
Didn't care for most of the level design though
The music is its strongest feature for sure
Yep this game is really nothing special but rocks an awesome soundtrack, as often happens with NES. It's more than worth a listen.
It's a tough pass for me though, the price for this cart in Italy is outrageous compared to PAL B.
Didn’t even realize there was an Italian version!
@@BigOleWords You show it at 0:54 in the upper right. There is no in-game translation though.
There are more PAL games with language selection, including some with somewhat questionable translations, but they are still to be analyzed here. Thanks for the vid!
@@mr.g4990 That's funny, that version was listed as the Australian one!
@@BigOleWords Probably a mistake due to shared region, I don't think Infogrames published this game outside Europe. The clear tell sign is the localization in the title inside the balloon, another weird one-of-a-time.
Smurfs are 3 apples tall
Way bigger than I thought!
@@BigOleWords weird thing is they measure themselves in units of smurfberries. The main younger smurfs are 25 smurfberries tall. 😂😂😂 that's true as fuk but it sounds mental
Great video!
Thanks!
its funny that "smurf" a word that is made up has a translation in different languages.
Yeah right?!
_les Schtroumpfs_
*CHUNGO*
I love how you help me out by telling me why I'm going to get mad at NES games 😂
The jokes on you though, I'm always mad at NES games. Retro games are my personal kryptonite yet I keep playing them.
Another excellent, super entertaining video about racially inappropriate smurfs who also don't give a hoot about rats and spiders
Haha that’s my true role in life: anger contextualizer!
dude, that's not smurf in blackface 😂😂😂. it's black smurf, happened because of the black fly (that you found and mention) bite the smurf
so its Donkey Kong County
The super unlicensed DK County!
today i have completed 'adwenture of tow sawyer'for nes (i heard americans do not like original book) but it was well made example of one hit death mechanic, if you would decide to play it : turbo buttons are requared and 5th & 6th levels are artificially difficult due to length and level design - but it is good game, pure arcade action, everything new, new backgrounds, new enemies every level, very entertaining,
one hit death usually mentioned as curse of old games,
so i came to ask you which games with one hit death do you know? anyway your video catalogs of games such as 'clones of zelda' run out of ideas, do this one)
Level Chungo.
¡Chungo!
De todas las versiones del juego la de Game Boy es un poquito mejor que la de nes ademas de tener mejor soundtrack
¡Frío! nunca he jugado esa version
hehe, chungo.
Check this blue shit out
What is with European Platformers and the drippy shit. So many drops
Sooooo many!
I speak and teach Spanish and "chungo" means nothing to me...
Open wide for some chungo!
What a chungo review
Was it?!?
What's with european games and harmful water droplets?
Maybe it’s a reflection of their poorly constructed roofs :)
LOS PETUFOS 😂
I'm not from Spain but I understand that "chungo" can also mean bad, ugly or difficult. I guess this game would also benefit from some quality-improvement patches.
Difficult would make sense!